With a flow somewhere between Tupac and Pimp C and a story that's straight gangsta, Freddie Gibbs would have fitted right in to hip-hop 15 years ago. Nowadays, though, he's just the latest rapper to have burnished his reputation thanks to judicious deployment of the online mixtape, last year's releases earning him praise for both his rhymes and his realism. A native of Gary, Indiana ("Ain't been a nigger bigger since the Jacksons left this city"), Gibbs is a player trying to escape the game. It's in describing regret and shame for his actions that Gibbs sets himself apart from his peers and there are moments, especially on Live By the Game, that the comparisons with Tupac seem more than just stylistic. Sadly, though, the appeal is only in the details when the subject matter is so familiar and the production nondescript.